


Small Battles

by efthemia



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-15 00:09:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3430601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/efthemia/pseuds/efthemia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I've decided I wouldn't mind using you," Shiori announces as she sips at her tea, feels the water from her hair drip onto her shoulders and the table.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Battles

**Author's Note:**

> _i wanna get closer and closer still  
>  i wanna take over your heart  
> you will be mine, mine_

Juri knows it was a mistake as soon as Shiori opens the door.

"You really are pathetic!" The dark purple circles under Shiori's eyes almost look like bruises, and she spits her words out like they'll poison her if she keeps them in her mouth any longer. "Do you expect me to come to you, crying and begging for help? Well, too bad! I'm not doing what you expect!"

Her fingers are pale and brittle-looking as they clutch the doorknob. Her hair is a frizzy mess of purple, falling over her forehead like limp strands of seaweed. Her lips are dry and chapped. Shiori is weakened, exhausted, dried out like she's been left on a beach with only the sand and salt to comfort her for days, months, years.

She's still beautiful, and still dangerous enough that Juri knows she shouldn't have tried to intervene. She'd been right in the first place when she told Utena it wasn't her problem, and yet here she is, completely transparent— Shiori's right, it is pathetic. 

Her hand reaches up to clutch at her chest unconsciously, some nameless force inexorably drawing her fingers towards the hard outline of the pendant under her shirt. It's too late by the time she realises what she's done, and she knows she's lost even as she jerks her hand away.

Shiori's gaze follows her movements, and she gives a short, sharp laugh. "Oh, _Juri-san_. You've always needed me more than I needed you, even now. I feel so sorry for you, my friend suffering like this."

She pauses. Stares at Juri. It's silent for a moment.

There's a clicking sound. Shiori's unlocked the chain holding the door shut.

"Years of agonising and staring at my picture alone in your room— Juri-san, you're so creepy!" She pauses. "Does it hurt, knowing that I fucked him? That I fucked him before I'd fuck you?"

"Shiori!"

"He got to me first. You can't have a miracle if you don't reach out and grab it with your own hands, and you're too weak to do anything." Her eyes are still too wild, her manner too unstable. She places a hand on Juri's cheek, and Juri feels herself shiver despite herself. "You feel guilty, because you want me even now, don't you?"

"It's not— Shiori, I—"

Shiori reaches up, standing on her tiptoes. Juri can see the pores on her skin and the dark shadow her eyelashes cast on her face. Her lips brush Juri's neck. Juri can't move; her heart has stopped like something out of some horrible romance novel, one of the ones that she'd secretly read in middle school when no one was watching, and had always felt overwhelming guilt when she couldn't stop herself from imagining Shiori in the boy's place.

_You're gross, Juri-san._

Shiori shoves her away roughly, and sighs in disgust. "You're too easy. I can't believe I used to idolise you. Beautiful, perfect Juri." She turns away, and the sight of the delicate line of her back hunched over, her bare feet and unwashed hair, is the most painful thing Juri's ever seen.

"You can come in," Shiori says, still facing away. "I'm getting bored already. I'll make tea."

It's something. Juri slips off her shoes and follows Shiori inside, unwilling and desperate all at the same time.

—

Shiori doesn't make tea, after all. Juri takes the kettle away from her, ever so careful to not let their fingers brush, and tells her that she needs to go shower. 

She'll probably find the cheap tea Shiori has too low-class for her standards, the kettle she bought for 800 yen too pathetic. Shiori feels the old, familiar acidic taste of hatred welling up in her throat— but surprising even herself, she agrees. 

"Just make black tea," she says, drawing off her shirt as she leaves the room and feeling Juri's eyes uncomfortably flicking down to the floor, back up and then down again, not sure whether looking or not looking is worse, not sure which reveals more about herself. It doesn't matter. Shiori already knows, anyway. "And don't come and peep at me."

She hears Juri make a little choked, protesting sound as she leaves the room, and barely manages to keep from laughing.

She's stronger than Juri. She's always been stronger.

—

"I've decided I wouldn't mind using you," Shiori announces as she sips at her tea, feels the water from her hair drip onto her shoulders and the table. She hadn't bothered drying it. She's wearing a t-shirt and track shorts— she'd wanted to come out in just the shirt and her panties, but somehow when she'd looked at herself in the mirror, with her short legs and face flushed red from the shower, she'd felt such disgust that she'd quickly looked away and gotten dressed.

"Don't be ridiculous," Juri says coldly, not making eye contact.

"You've never had sex, have you, Juri-san?" Juri doesn't reply. "I wouldn't mind being the first one. It would be such a fun story to tell. All those girls on the fencing team who adore you, all your teachers who think you're the perfect student. Imagine how disgusted they'd be if they knew you actually liked girls in that way."

Juri sighs. "Somehow, I don't think you would do that."

"Do what?"

"Tell everyone. You have your own reputation to protect, after all."

"Maybe not." Shiori leans her torso onto the table, resting her head on her arms. "There could be a lot of other reasons, though. Maybe I want to hurt you. Maybe I want to hurt Ruka. Maybe I just think it would be satisfying, to see you lose your pretend strength and self-control, to see you beg for me to touch you. That might be nice."

Shiori reaches out, brushes her fingers lightly over Juri's lips. Juri shudders a little, but doesn't break her rigid posture. "How would it hurt Ruka?"

Shiori blinks in surprise. Juri could be dense, but she'd assumed even she would have figured it out. 

She's about to answer when Juri finally looks up, makes eye contact with her for the first time so far in the entire afternoon. They stay like that for a long moment: Shiori's hand on Juri's shoulder, Juri's hands still clutching her teacup like a lifeline, with only the steady _drip, drip, drip_ of Shiori's hair onto the table to signify the continued passing of time.

Juri never gets her answer, because Shiori yanks her forward by her hair and kisses her, bites her lip until Juri gasps, instead.

—

Shiori starts to feel apprehensive as soon as she stops for a moment, her legs straddling Juri's waist, and looks down at Juri's tall, elegant form sprawled across her bed. Juri's eyes are shut. Her collar is pulled open to expose her neck, the beginning of a bruise already starting to form on her collarbone. Her face is flushed just a little, the perfect, picturesque stain of faint rose on her cheekbones, her mouth slightly open and her breath coming out in little gasps.

The gold chain glints a little, half-exposed under Juri's open shirt. Shiori feels a surge of hatred at the sight of it, and more anger at herself when she realises that she’s already turned on from just this, from a few inches of Juri's perfect pale throat and her head thrown back onto Shiori's pillow.

Juri's eyes flutter open, confused, and she props herself up on her elbows. "Shiori, is something wrong?" And her voice is so gentle, so filled with genuine concern, despite the fact that Shiori has blatantly said she's just using her—

"Don't say my name," Shiori hisses, and shoves Juri back down and grabs the chain of the locket, yanking it tight around Juri's throat for a moment. "Don't speak so fondly to me. It's gross."

Juri coughs as Shiori lets go, turns her head to the side and averts her eyes from Shiori and— silently, without any resistance— _nods._

Something Shiori has and yet cannot have said aloud flashes through her mind. _It's still no good!_

_Why do you look at me like that? Why does it have to be this way?_

She's won; her beautiful, untouchable Juri has been dragged down with her, all the fight gone from her, all that pretension and condescension gone. She's won. And yet— yet—

Shiori trails kisses down across Juri's breasts and stomach, slides a hand between her legs. But even as she listens to Juri's moans get louder and more desperate, as Juri gasps her name like a prayer— _Shiori, Shiori, please—_ even as she feels Juri cling to her with her fingers tangled in Shiori's hair like a drowning person trying not to let herself get swept away by the current, it still doesn't feel like the victory she expected.

—

Juri leaves immediately after, pulling on her uniform jacket and fastening up the collar with frantic, trembling fingers, telling Shiori how she's got to go to fencing practice in an hour. Shiori watches from the bed silently, impassively, keeping the sheet draped over her chest and her head resting on one hand.

The next day, she sees Juri averting her eyes whenever Shiori is nearby, sees Ruka follow Juri into the empty fencing room, hears later that Juri has challenged Utena to another duel.

The next week, she sees Juri open her collar a little after fencing practice, and sees, for the first time in years, no glint of a gold chain at her neck.

She'd won. She'd won— 

—hadn't she?

**Author's Note:**

> juri/shiori more like just fuck me up. writing from shiori's POV was pretty hard, and i really tried to get a balance of all the different aspects of her character, so i hope it worked out. i never understood people who hate shiori or just see her as a manipulative bitch when she's got such a complex personality to be honest!
> 
> (obviously) based on that scene in episode 29, although it's intended to be more of an alternate way it could have gone than something to fill the gaps in what actually happened in canon.
> 
> EPISODE 29 FUCKED ME UP SO HARD I'VE WATCHED IT OVER 10 TIMES AND IT CAUSES PHYSICAL PAIN EACH TIME
> 
> also, check out my friend mads's juri/shiori mix, i listened to it while writing this and it's really good!  
> http://8tracks.com/raincoatsjooji/desecrate


End file.
